• 30 to 50% of tick bites occur in private gardens and municipal parks in Europe, according to our partner The Conversation.

  • Based on this observation, teams of scientists and citizens are starting to think about and carry out experiments on how to develop parks and gardens in such a way as to limit these bites.

  • The analysis of this phenomenon was carried out by Jean-François Cosson, specialist in the ecology of infectious diseases at the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment.

All the studies converge.

In Western Europe, 30 to 50% of tick bites occur in private gardens and municipal parks.

Obviously, not just any park or garden;

and here is the good news: if we manage to reduce the risk of bites in these places, then we will have taken a big step in the prevention of diseases linked to ticks.

If the risk of being bitten by a tick in your downtown garden is next to zero, it is not the case in your vegetable garden or your favorite picnic area in the countryside or on the edge of the city. 'a forest.

This is because

Ixodes ricinus

ticks

, the species that most frequently bite humans, love humid environments to survive, and inhabited by a wide variety of animals (rodents, deer, birds and lizards) to feed on. and reproduce.

On the basis of these very simple observations, teams of scientists and citizens are starting to think about and carry out experiments on how to develop our parks and gardens in such a way as to limit these bites.

With the aim of reducing risks by 30 to 50% for people and their pets.

Ticks transmit Lyme disease © California Department of Public Health / Flickr

In the garden, avoid shade and humidity

Since ticks need shade and humidity, their presence can be reduced by creating open and sunny areas: cut vegetation, prune tree bases, remove piles of leaves and seal stone walls and stone walkways. ;

place hedges and beds away from frequented areas;

allow the lawn to dry completely between waterings and compost - or burn - cut vegetation.

If your habitat is adjacent to a forest, arrange a three-foot-wide strip with plants spaced apart on dry mulch (bark) or gravel.

Cover play areas and picnic areas with the same material and create small paths.

This will make it much more difficult for ticks to enter and move around your garden.

A pesticide can be applied selectively to these developed areas to increase the barrier effect.

Develop your garden and play areas to reduce the presence of ticks © Tick Control Handbook / Stafford (2004), CC BY-NC-ND

Deworm animals

Pets (dogs, cats) and wild animals can bring adult ticks - which can lay thousands of eggs - into our parks and gardens.

This is why it is necessary to regularly deworm pets, whether mechanically (with brush and comb) or using repellents or acaricides.

But what to do with wild animals?

For example, a fence could be installed to prevent the passage of deer, which is the food source for more than three-quarters of adult ticks, and are therefore essential for their reproduction.

Common tick © Erik Karits / Pixabay

For rodents, wood mice or russet vole, the task is more complicated.

Controlling their population by trapping remains ineffective, the latter and their ticks rapidly recolonizing the places.

The solution would be to deworm them too using automatic traps specially created for this purpose.

This is how citizens of New Jersey reduced tick abundance and the prevalence of

Borrelia burgdorferi

(the infectious agent of Lyme disease)

by 90%

after just two years of use.

In Connecticut, authorities have also set up stations to deworm deer with convincing results.

Favor their natural enemies

Ticks have relatively few natural enemies, but there is consistent evidence that guinea fowl and chickens are formidable tick eaters.

Chickens are formidable tick killers © Spiridon Ion Cepleanu, Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0

They can also be confronted with their own parasites: microscopic worms of different species (

Steinernema carpocapsae

or

Heterorhabditis bacteriophora

) - completely harmless to humans and pets - are for example recommended.

Mix the worms with water and scatter them around your garden, making sure to keep the treated area well moist for a good week to allow the worms to establish themselves well.

However, the effectiveness of this method is not guaranteed because these worms are also active against many insects (some of which are useful against plant diseases);

this causes a dilution effect and reduces the impact on ticks in the natural environment.

Our file "Lyme disease"

More effective, entomopathogenic fungi, which parasitize arthropods, insects and mites, and invariably end up killing them.

Beauveria bassiana

or

Metarhizium anisopliae

are the most used in biological control.

The inhabitants of Dutchess County (New York), assisted by scientific teams, have thus reduced the density of ticks in their properties by 60%, by capturing rodents with special traps that spray them with spores of these fungi.

The rodents are then released and the fungi take care of deworming them by killing their ticks.

Hosts and natural enemies of ticks © Jean-François Cosson, CC BY-NC-ND

If to face the most difficult situations, some will want to turn to pesticides, it should be remembered here that their use requires great caution and targeted use on the developed areas described above in the most frequented places;

many pesticides are in fact very harmful to domestic animals, children and flora and fauna.

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This analysis was written by Jean-François Cosson, specialist in the ecology of infectious diseases at the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment.


The original article was published on The Conversation website.

Declaration of interests

Jean-François Cosson does not work, does not advise, does not own shares, does not receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has not declared any affiliation other than his research organization.

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